(http://us.macmillan.com/myrealchildren/jowalton)
Patricia Cowen sits in a nursing
home suffering dementia, but ironically remembers both of her lives that she’s
lived out parallel to each other. Her life diverged at a moment when a young
scholar proposes to her and she either said yes or no. In each timeline,
history has unfolded a little differently. One is a world where JFK was never
shot and nuclear disarmament ushers an age of peace. In her other life, nuclear
strikes have created a more radioactive and harsher, albeit still liveable,
world. This novel shows how the larger political sphere can affect people on a
deeply personal level. Written with meditative prose, this novel concentrates
on the relationships between characters that will leave you missing them when
you close the book.
